


the world is changed

by mornen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU, Canonical Character Death, Death, Death from Old Age, Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Old Age, Personal Favorite, Post-Quest, Siblings, arwen chooses not to die, even more blasphemy, for personal reasons, old Arwen, the choice of the peredhil, yes I'm hung up on elves die because they don't have the same souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27506743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Arwen makes her final choice*The sun is pale through the branches of the trees. Soon it will be night. The mallorn-leaves are falling. Soon it will be spring.Elladan sits on the other side of her, and this could be any day in Rivendell, sharing stories and poems and songs, staying up too late by candlelight, until the absurdity of life became a joy in itself and they laughed until they ached and didn’t get enough sleep.‘Come with us,’ Elrohir says. ‘You’re frightened. You don’t have to die.’
Relationships: Arwen Undómiel & Elladan & Elrohir
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	the world is changed

They find Arwen beneath a dying tree. She looks older now. Her hair is long and turned silver like their mother’s, but with streaks of white. Her face is grave and lined with deeper lines than they expected to find – laughter lines, creases on her brow – it’s only been a few years since they last saw her, but the skin on her hands seems thinner. 

Elladan kneels in front of her on the damp moss beneath the dying trees of Lórien. He takes her hands in his. They feel frail, and she looks up at him with the twilit eyes that he remembers from the last time he saw her, and from her childhood and from all the long years they’ve spent together. Only now there is something lost from them, and the light he remembers is gone.

‘It was sudden,’ she says. ‘He was too proud.’ 

‘He didn’t wait,’ Elladan says.

‘He didn’t want you to watch him die,’ Arwen says. ‘He was… proud.’ 

Elrohir sits beside her. He puts his arm around her. She is beautiful. Finally her face matches the wisdom in her eyes – the pain and the long years of joy. 

‘I was...’ she says, ‘so sure.’ 

‘He should have told us,’ Elladan says. He touches her cheek.

‘You look so young,’ she says.

‘I’m not,’ Elladan whispers, ‘little sister.’ 

She cries at that, and Elladan does too. The sun is pale through the branches of the trees. Soon it will be night. The mallorn-leaves are falling. Soon it will be spring.

Elladan sits on the other side of her, and this could be any day in Rivendell, sharing stories and poems and songs, staying up too late by candlelight, until the absurdity of life became a joy in itself and they laughed until they ached and didn’t get enough sleep.

‘Come with us,’ Elrohir says. ‘You’re frightened. You don’t have to die.’ 

She places her hand on top of his. 

‘I thought it would be easier. Ada always said I didn’t understand.’ She looks to the trees around them. They stand tall, but the silver bark is turning white. Water from the river seeps along the ground. The river grows wider. This too may be covered. This may be her grave. ‘I suppose I did not.’ 

‘Then come with us,’ Elladan says. ‘We will leave soon, for we feel the time longer now, and our life will not remain forever.’ 

‘We have to leave,’ Elrohir says. ‘There is a ship. Come with us. Do not die, so disheartened.’ 

A grouse flies into the air, low to the ground, the sound of its wings like an explosion that echoes through the woods. 

‘Come with us,’ Elladan says. ‘Place your feet on sacred ground, the Undying Lands, and do not die. And if the Valar reject you, find within themselves no love for you – you of the Firstborn, of the Secondborn, of the Ainur themselves – if they find within themselves no mercy, then we too shall die, and thus never be parted.

‘Live with the world, see what comes, grow strong to fight at the end of time. Hold your memories of this life as treasures, but come to see Emmë again, come to see Ada. Come to live. Break promises. Estel will understand.’ 

Arwen twists Elladan’s hair around her finger. It is dark, dark and long and touched with silver, but still his face is barely lined. Still he sees himself as he always was, unchanging, in every mirror. 

‘Do not die here,’ Elladan says softly. ‘Please, little one. Please. The grief would be too much for me to bear.’ 

‘There is no ship that would take me,’ Arwen says. ‘I made my choice. How can I take it back now, when my soul is weak within me, and my body is breaking down? I can feel it. I will wait here and take my death, as bitter as it may be. I have said my farewell to all that I’ve loved.’ 

‘But not to our mother,’ Elrohir says. 

Arwen closes her eyes. Tears run down her face. She shudders and draws her grey cloak closer about her. 

‘Break your promise,’ Elrohir pleads. ‘Estel is gone with his pride, still strong, accepting the bitter sorrow, accepting the hope for which he was named. But for us, is there no hope? None but to die with a world that we ourselves will not destroy?’

‘Estel told me to leave,’ Arwen says. ‘To repent, and seek a ship, but how can I go now, when my life is fading, and my children too will die?’ 

‘Then why would you leave them?’ Elladan whispers. ‘You have gone from them now, gone to die alone at the very end of winter? Why if you do not know within your heart that we shall meet them again, or the One has no mercy, no love, and knows nothing? For we, the Peredhil, have been made, and we cannot be unmade. And how should we be made to endure a parting beyond the ends of the world? Break your promise, break your vow. I will love no One who would not forgive you.’ 

Arwen closes her eyes. She is frail, but there is still a strength to her spirit that she feels, pulling her up, pulling her to the sky. She is the Evenstar. She is slowly dying, and around her Lórien dies too. Still she waits for something, but it may be that she will never find it. She stands. She has not broken yet; her soul is not yet shattered. 

Death is bitter when it is a choice with no right answer. But still she is Elrond’s daughter. Still she is Celebrían’s child. Still she wed a mortal, and still she bore mortal children. 

‘I will take your ship,’ she says. ‘I will live if I can. I will make this my last hope.’ 

They turn from the dying lands of their youth. They take a ship.

Lórien lies silent.

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this scene since I was six and read their ending and it was like Aragorn dies of choice when Arwen is pleading with him not to and then she runs away to die alone in the fading lands of her youth and I was like hmm That Didn't Happen
> 
> like I get it I get it death is terrifying and your family can die before you are ready for it and the grief is too much to bear but also That Didn't Happen 
> 
> and no I'm not hung up on the whole 'elves will perish with the world forever' for personal reasons that have to do with being called an elf or a changeling or a fairy my entire life and 'are you even human' etc.* 
> 
> *I may be hung up on this for personal reasons


End file.
